New feature: Recover deleted Office 365 Group via PowerShell
If you've deleted an Office 365 group, it's now retained by default for a period of 30 days. Within that period, you can now restore the group and its associated apps and data via a new PowerShell cmdlet. For additional information please go to https://aka.ms/groupssoftdelete.Announcing Office 365 Groups + Team Sites integration!
Today, we announced the integration of Office 365 Groups and Team Sites. When you create an Office 365 Group, you get a shared inbox, calendar, OneNote notebook, a Planner for task management—and now, a full-powered SharePoint team site. The integration of O365 Groups and SharePoint team sites means that any time a new team site is created, a new group membership will be created as well. You can easily see the members of the site, if the site is listed as public or private within your organization and how it has been classified. In addition, all existing Office 365 Groups will be updated with their own team site. And once the rollout is complete for your tenant, all newly created groups will get a team site by default. Get the complete details in this post and learn more during the O365 Groups sessions at Ignite. Mark-Kashman cfiessingerIntroducing Outlook Groups on iPad
It's been a year since we launched Outlook Groups mobile apps on iOS, Android and Windows phones. The reception thus far on our mobile apps has been extremely positive, and we have made huge improvements across the board with added functionality, as well as improving speed and reliability of our mobile apps with a goal of producing the best groups experience on the go. Ever since we launched the iPhone app, we’ve seen people using it in all sorts of scenarios, many of them on an iPad! We have heard from teachers in classroom who use iPad as their primary classroom device for the need to have Outlook Groups on the iPad so they can share updates and assignments with their class. We have heard from our enterprise users alike about sales teams who use iPad to share conversations, files and events. Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of Outlook Groups for the iPad. Office 365 work or school users worldwide can now download the app from the iPad store. Download the app to your iPad today and go here http://aka.ms/o365g to learn more about Office 365 Groups! All the functionality that exists for Outlook Groups on the iPhone is now also available on the iPad. It’s easier than ever to participate in group conversations, share pictures, or view and edit your documents in full screen, and view and create group events to bring your team together on the iPad. Give it a try and send us feedback. Kady Dundas[New!] Drag and drop conversations into groups
Good news! We're currently rolling out drag and drop for messages and conversations into groups in Outlook on the web first for First Release customers, then Standard release customers. It's much easier to explain with a GIF: Support for Outlook 2016 for Windows is coming soon--stay tuned. You can find the documentation here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/24e809db-70e1-45b7-8d54-efac7951dc95Experiences "migrating" to an O365 Group
So, I am starting to "migrate" the particular team that I work for over to Groups (that means from our existing SharePoint site, existing Yammer group, existing mailboxes, etc). Wanted to share the general experience and reception so far, with PLUS / MINUS perception notes: PLUS - We are looking to use Group Conversations and shut down use of Yammer for our team discussions. So far users seem more apt to use the conversations because it is more like email, so probably a ding for use of Yammer In general we are going to guide Groups users away from using Yammer PLUS - We are using an automatic group membership (everyone that reports to my Manager) - which works perfectly! We have a revolving door of interns/temps as part of the team, and access to resources is no-brainer. MINUS - This will be our first Modern SharePoint site, and big negative is critical links removed from the UI. Menu - using "/_layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx" to recreate our horizontal navigation. This accomplishes what we need, but I fear that it may eventually go away... Permissions - I understand group permission limitations, but our connected SP sites have to have additional viewers and contributors. Right now from the UI, can only apply permissions to Group Owners and Group Members. Using "/_layouts/15/user.aspx" to get around this for now, but again will future updates restrict this? MINUS - Document Migration - we have our own PowerShell scripts that we use to migrate content between sites. The scripts appear to only work run by a Group owner if the person running the script is a Group owner. We typically use a service account and set it as Site Collection Admin, run the move, then remove the service account. Here the service account still doenst have rights even after being made the SCA for a Group. We will definitely be doing most of this for our users since we don't want to put the tedious actions on them MINUS - Calendar - we use a SharePoint Team Site calendar - was able to easily open the SP Calendar in Outlook "Agenda View", copy entries, and paste them into the Group Calendar (in Outlook Agenda View), but they never synced back up, never appeared in the Group calendar, though I see them in my physical Outlook calendar Dont seem to be able to create just an entry (without actually inviting all attendees) MINUS - Group Navigation - switching between the different Groups workloads is still pitiful I've manually entered direct links to the different workloads in the Groups SharePoint Site, but users continually get "lost". They'll end up on the calendar which has no links whatsover (sometimes), the options are in different places in each workload. I know this has been brought up over and over, but its been months and months, if not over a year at this point, and doesnt seem this is getting any better at all. MINUS - Groups files - this is maybe just our opinion, but do not like the Groups Files automatically including email attachments in the default view. Often confusing, especially if things have been moved to the SharePoint files, you see duplicates, etc. PLUS - Groups app - easy access to everything, general consensus is much easier to find stuff from the app then from the web itself MINUS - Groups app notifications - marking conversation messages as read seems to be wonky, users are complaining because they have to physically leave the group a couple times before it tells them they have read all the messages. MINUS - Planner - Though there is excitement about what Planner can be, some negatives emerging - no Planner app, unsure of a way right now to move items from a SharePoint Action Items list to Planner (other than just manually reentering stuff). PLUS - OneNote, this has always been my favorite thing Microsoft has built, so glad to see it easier integrated into our group activities. We are migrating our running Staff Meeting Agenda (from Yammer note) to OneNote MINUS - UI - we have always used a custom enterprise mega menu throughout our SharePoint environment, for easy navigation, with no customization options, we lose this and will have to start teach our users to keep going to our Intranet homepage, then navigate where you want to go with the menu NEUTRAL - Dont care for the single column of the websites, we have traditionally used a custom responsive layout that has at least 2 columns of content. Everything just feels to big / too much whitespace. MINUS - SharePoint App, we have multiple document libraries, the Groups/SharePoint apps really only focus on the primay Shared Documents one. Overall, it seems like it will be a positive adoption, but there are several things that just miss the mark, at least for how our organization works.Our Groups Rollout (part 2)
So we have really started rolling Groups out, gave some feedback when we first started evaluating/piloting (here) and now i've got some more feedback to share based on direct business user and real life scenarios. We are marketing this as "collaboration in a box" -- thats what makes the most sense to business end-users. We are not even considering Teams at this point in time, and since everything is a Group anyways, we want to get a firm grasp, foundation with Groups first before evaluation the things that sit on top of it. Our setup Groups creation is locked down to IT We are focusing of formal business workgroups and teams that already exist, and organizational/project teams based on special request We have a request process that goes through IT We are manually creating all groups with this format: Name: GROUP - Group Name Email: group_acryonym@company.com We also did group categories: Workgroup, Sub-Team, Team, Project, Organization, Group, Sales Subscribe users automatically (by default) Planner notifications turned on (by default) I started out trying to handle migrations myself (just powershell scripts and so on), but in the end it got too difficult and unwieldy and we decided to invest in a migration tool - ShareGate - which is making everything a breeze. I wrote up my own user guide that shows what each "tool" as part of Groups is and some basics for accomplishing every day tasks, and a new group day 1 guide (showing them how to favorite it in outlook, follow the sp site, add it to S4B, sync files/onenote, etc) We created a web part that shows which Groups a member is part of and links to each group tool (here), and we've been using that are our defacto "front door" to groups, training them you can get there from a million different entry points, but when in doubt, go to our intranet homepage and get what you are looking for The good: Our business users love the mobile access to the data, and how they can access it from Outlook, web, or mobile app How everything is interconnected - they are grasping this and its value so much easier than just getting a SharePoint site, and not always knowing what to do with it We are actually advertising how you don't even have to use the site, most groups are collaborating with just the surfaced workloads, whether they know it is sharepoint or not Our business users are really liking the exposure some of the existing tools that they didnt necessarily know about (like OneNote) Planner - they love planner, we have traditionally use SharePoint task lists, its simple and make sense, and they understand some of the coming features that will address their near team wants Overwhelmingly they are viewing this as a "fix" to the negative perceptions of SharePoint collaboration in general (a nice somewhat unexpected reaction) The bad: Notification hell - This is the biggie. We have started with the firehose wide open approach, and will probably be changing that immediately. The regular conversations is one thing, but the Planner notifications is just WAY too much. (between the emails, the app push notifications, the notifications pop up in O365 interface, and so on). We had a major workgroup just complete, so they went in to start loading in action items, and I wish I had told the facilitator to turn off notifications before doing it, but everyone just got bombarded by like 100 emails I think this has to start taking priority - i think it is the last remaining impediment to really gaining user adoption IMO - they are loving the features, but this is a big turn off I worry if they start to unsubscribe and turn off all the notifications, then they'll stop "going" to the Groups, and start backsliding into old ways of doing things. "Modern" Sub-sites - We are migrating existing content to the Group sharepoint site on their behalf (leveraging ShareGate), but subsites are just "wonky" in a Group site at this point -- I don't know a better way to describe it at this point - its like everything is built for just the top level site, and subsites are an afterthought at this point SP News - ya, its a shiny toy in the sharepoint sites, but most of our users so far have been like, "meh..." Calendar invites - maybe not a big deal, but it just adds to the notification hell, need better ways to create events without inviting/notifying everyone (here) Files Tab - lots of confused users trying to upload files to the "Files" tab and not knowing how to get it in the right folder that they use to analyze their data. We are marketing this as one view is for "recent activity" (and "please dont upload anything here") and one view is for uploading. I'm finding this takes direct explanation to the business users, otherwise they are not really grasping where all of their folders went. I've not been a big fan of this feature, but I do get it (here)"My Groups" list for SharePoint Homepage Web Part
So, we are about to do some major rollout of Groups to our company. While there are a million "entry points" for Groups, we simply wanted a list of Groups that a member belongs to on our Intranet Homepage, with quick links to each of the major workloads. We try to drive all users to our Intranet homepage as an easy means to accessing information, until (if ever) they become more comfortable navigating all of the tools themselves. So I put together a quick script that will show (1) What groups I (the current user) belong to (item level permissions), (2) Links to the major workloads associated with that Group (excluding Planner cause havent figured that out yet), (3) other supporting information about the Group. Now we can serve it up on our Intranet Homepage (with list web part, search results+display templates, script editor web part, however else) as "My Groups" This also serves as an "auditing" list for us admins (we can see what groups exist, which language, what category/classification, dynamic membership, etc). Probably more elegant ways to do this (and probably better SPFX stuff in the future, but I only know what I know), but in general, I am just clearing a SharePoint list of existing entries, querying all O365 Groups, and adding them into the SharePoint list, and then setting "Read" permissions on the list item to the particular Group (so only Group members can actually see their own Groups). Probably running this once or twice a day. # SharePoint Online DLLs #$dllDirectory = "D:\Assets\\16.1.6112.1200" $dllDirectory = "C:\PowerShell\DLL\16.1.6112.1200" Add-Type -Path "$dllDirectory\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll" Add-Type -Path "$dllDirectory\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll" # User Credentials and Variables $username = "<admin username here>" $password = '<admin password here>' $securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $Password -AsPlainText -Force $url = "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/groups/" # the url of the site where your list is $listName = "Groups" # the name of your list $domain = "@contoso.com" # Connect to Exchange Online Write-Host "Connecting to Exchange Online..." -ForegroundColor Green $E_Credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $userName, $SecurePassword $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $E_Credential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection Import-PSSession $Session -AllowClobber | out-null # Connect to SPO $clientContext = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($url) $credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($username, $securePassword) $clientContext.Credentials = $credentials Write-Host "Connected to: '$Url'" -ForegroundColor Green $List = $clientContext.Web.Lists.getByTitle($listName) $clientContext.Load($List) $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() # Get Existing Entries $spQuery = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.CamlQuery $items = $List.GetItems($spQuery) $clientContext.Load($items) $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() # Remove Existing Entries Write-Host "Clearing existing entries" -ForegroundColor Cyan $count = 0 ForEach ($item in $items){ Write-Host (" "+$count+" "+$Item.FieldValues["ID"]+" "+$Item.FieldValues["Title"]) $List.getitembyid($Item.id).DeleteObject() $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() $count += 1 } # Get all O365 Groups Write-Host "Getting O365 Groups" -ForegroundColor Cyan $o365Groups = get-unifiedgroup $count = 0 foreach($group in $o365Groups){ $count++ Write-Host "$count - Creating $($group.DisplayName)" -ForegroundColor Green #$group | select * # Show all available Group details $O365_group = $clientContext.Site.RootWeb.EnsureUser("c:0o.c|federateddirectoryclaimprovider|$($group.ExternalDirectoryObjectId)") $clientContext.Load($O365_group) [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue[]]$groupOwners = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue $owners = ($group.ManagedBy) foreach($owner in $owners){ try{ $user = $clientContext.Web.EnsureUser("$owner@buckman.com") $clientContext.Load($user) $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue]$fieldUser = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue $fieldUser.LookupId = $user.Id if($counter -eq 0){ $groupOwners = $fieldUser } else { $groupOwners += $fieldUser } $counter++ } catch { Write-Host "User does not exist" } } # Create new entry in SharePoint List # Change the ["field"] values to match your SharePoint column internal names $ListItemInfo = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListItemCreationInformation $newItem = $List.AddItem($ListItemInfo) $newItem["Title"] = $group.DisplayName # Single Line of Text $newItem["Group"] = $O365_group # Person/Group Field (Group enabled) $newItem["Description"] = $group.Notes # Multiple Lines of Text $newItem["Conversation"] = "https://outlook.office.com/owa/?path=/group/$($group.Alias)$($domain)/mail, Conversation" # Hyperlink $newItem["Calendar"] = "https://outlook.office.com/owa/?path=/group/$($group.Alias)$($domain)/calendar, Calendar" # Hyperlink $newItem["Files"] = "https://outlook.office.com/owa/?path=/group/$($group.Alias)$($domain)/files, Files" # Hyperlink $newItem["Library"] = "$($group.SharePointDocumentsUrl), Document Library" # Hyperlink $newItem["Site"] = "$($group.SharePointSiteUrl), SharePoint Site" # Hyperlink $newItem["Notebook"] = "$($group.SharePointNotebookUrl), Notebook" # Hyperlink $newItem["Category"] = $group.Classification # Single Line of Text $newItem["Connectors"] = $group.ConnectorsEnabled # Boolean (Yes/No) $newItem["HiddenFromGAL"] = $group.HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled # Boolean (Yes/No) $newItem["Language"] = $group.Language # Single Line of Text $newItem["Privacy"] = $group.AccessType # Single Line of Text $newItem["DynamicMembership"] = $group.IsMembershipDynamic # Boolean (Yes/No) $newItem["ExternalDirectoryID"] = $group.ExternalDirectoryObjectId # Single Line of Text $newItem["ExternalUserCount"] = $group.GroupExternalMemberCount # Number $newItem["Owners"] = $groupOwners # Multiple Person Field # Add more as needed $newItem.Update() $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() # Break Permissions $newItem.BreakRoleInheritance($false, $false) $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() # Remove Any Existing Permissions $permissions = $newItem.RoleAssignments $clientContext.Load($permissions) $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() foreach($permission in $permissions){ $newItem.RoleAssignments.GetByPrincipalId($permission.PrincipalId).DeleteObject() } # Set permissions to actual O365 Group $reader = $clientContext.Web.RoleDefinitions.GetByName("Read"); $roleAssignment = New-Object microsoft.SharePoint.Client.RoleDefinitionBindingCollection($clientContext) $roleAssignment.Add($reader) $clientContext.Load($newItem.RoleAssignments.Add($O365_group, $roleAssignment)) $newItem.Update(); $clientContext.ExecuteQuery() }Office 365 Groups will now have unique mailNickname
Hi all, We've completed an enhancement with the Azure Active Directory team which will now enforce mailNickname to be unique across all Office 365 Groups within a tenant. This will help ensure resiliency across the tenant and facilitate smooth sync scenarios to on-premises. When Office 365 Groups are created, the name provided is used for mailNickname as well as the first portion of SMTP Address. Previously, Office 365 Group creation did not enforce the mailNickname to be unique across Office 365 Groups. If multiple Office 365 Groups contain the same mailNickname, customers can encounter collisions when these groups are sync’d to on-premises via AAD Connect. In Azure Active Directory, an enforcement has been placed on the mailNickname property so that it will be unique across Office 365 Groups. Previously created Office 365 Groups that have duplicate mailNicknames will not be affected. If a user attempts to modify the mailNickname property through PowerShell or other means, the service will verify whether the new mailNickname being specified is unique. If not, the modification will be rejected. Additionally, a user can create an Office 365 Group that has the same mailNickname as an Office 365 Group that has been soft deleted. If a user attempts to restore the soft deleted group, they will be prompted to change the mailNickname. Mike McLean Office 365 Groups Senior Program Manager
Office 365 Groups What to Use When Framework and Inforgraphic
There's been plenty of buzz about which new Office 365 tools to use and in turn it's generated a lot of great content. We struggled with the same problem at AvePoint and decided to create a simple framework to help those in charge of collaboration pick the right combination of tools for their business processes. We've now converted that into a simple infographic and post as well and hope others can benefit from it too :) https://www.avepoint.com/blog/strategy-blog/how-to-use-office-365-groups/ What are some of the deciding factors your organizations are using to pick the right tool today? Would love to learn more from the community as well.
